WechtleinUns
Well-Known Member
Hello everybody.
I've been reading the literal interpretations thread from the beginning, to about the beginning of the 3rd page. I see that asnlifecoach has ruffled a few feathers, though I don't blame her(statistically, asn is more likely to be a girl, but I digress.
). The different sides of the discussion are coming from two different vantage points: Verbose and logical, and Emotional and empathetic. Perhaps I can explain: I used to think very much like SUM1 and King Oni. In fact, I relate to and prefer their mode of thinking. Nevertheless, I recently underwent a shift in perspective a few years ago, that enabled me to communicate in a neurotypical style.
The two different styles don't match up, because they are actually two different formats, within which information is encapsulated very differently. The neurotypical style makes much heavier use of the lower limbic system. On top of the limbic system, they also use the higher level conscious processing functions, though not exclusively. This mixture results in a different communicative format. If you think of it in programming terms, it is like a function that accepts different arguments. If you send the wrong parameters to the function, then much of the information will be used incorrectly, or simply be discarded.
In that sense, we have bugs in our code. ^.^
The aspergic style of communication is much more lopsided. I have found that we have the capability to use both the upper executive functions in the cerebellum, as well as the powerful communicative styles utilized by the lower limbic system. In that sense, we do not fundamentally "lack" anything, in terms of neurological topography. And there probably is no real structural pathology with regards to brain wiring. However, and this is the key point, the aspergic uses his system resources much differently.
If the neurotypical can be said to use the lower limbic system in parallel to the upper executive functions, then the aspie can be said to use one or the other, with the option to choose. I personally have experienced this: I can function in a predominantly logical mode, where emotional considerations and problems of a social nature are cast to the side, or I can function in a predominantly empathetic mode, where logic is less important than the overall group "feelings/vibrations".
I say "predominantly" because there is no complete exclusivity between the two systems. In either mode, there is usually a hint of the other as well. But the overall ratio of logic to emotion is much more unbalanced. Furthermore, even though I can switch between the two communicative modes, to do so is quite expensive in terms of the processing power required. You could think of it as a computational "context-switch", on one of those old LDP-11 microcomputers, which was prohibitively expensive to perform. This is why, even today, good computing practice suggests that one should avoid large amounts of function calls(which are essentially context-switches).
I find that the logical, "aspie" method of thinking is most useful when I am alone or working on math/computer programming. It is excellent for learning new materials and information. Indeed, I often use it when taking university classes to supercharge my academic performance. Usually, I need only study 20-minutes a day with such a mode of thinking, and usually learn the majority of the course material within a month.
The more limbic, "neurotypical" method of thinking, however, is definitely more beneficial in large groups and/or social situations. If you think of the social situation as a group of dogs, then you can use rudimentary animal psychology to gain a foot-hold in the neurotypical style of thinking. To put it another way, a large group of people is much too chaotic for anyone to rely much on logical processing. Instead, the limbic system is given more prominence to allow people to interact.
To elaborate, let's look at the functions of the lower limbic system. These involve things like sensing danger, the fight-or-flight response, male puffery/chauvinism, sexual desire, etc. The main "arguments" that the limbic system accepts as input include: "Sounds, body language, eye contact, environmental stimuli, etc, etc." With humans, there are additional considerations, namely textual/explicitly encoded information via speech. However, the limbic system is not well suited for this kind of information.
As a result, I have found that many neurotypicals strip out a large amount of information from speech. Particularly, when in a large group setting. So what does this mean? It means that when you are speaking to people in a group at some club with lights and music, the limbic system is usually given more prominence. And the limbic system gives much more prominence to information of an animalistic nature.
I can not speak for all aspies(or neuros, for that matter), but I used to assume that the information conveyed by "body language" was pretty much the same as the information that comes through explicitly specified text or speech. I had assumed that I simply could not understand or pick up on this information, but that it, nevertheless, was of the same content and character as the information I dealt with every day.
I've now come to understand that this is not necessarily the case. When communicating with others, or in group situations, the precise nature of what you say is not nearly as important as how you say it. Most of the content is filtered out and discarded by the limbic system in any case, depending on how that person organizes their intellectual priorities. I apologize for using the following analogy in advance, as it has been deemed highly offensive amongst some people that I have shared it with. Nevertheless, I have found it to be of great use when explaining things to some.
Think of a group of dogs, or if you wish, cavemen, sitting outside a cave. Hell, just think of a group of cavemen, sitting with their dogs, outside of a cave. These guys are just bumming around, and probably not thinking about things such as advanced trigonometry. Now then, in this environment, a caveman says something, and all the others grunt in approval. Then they go back to just sitting. A few minutes later, another caveman says something, and they all grunt in approval. Bear meat all around. But then, one guy says something, and another guy doesn't grunt. Ogg said something nasty about Bogg's mother.
And **** goes down.
This analogy may be oversimplified, but I hope it illustrates my point. Neurotypicals are not cavemen. Many neurotypicals are much smarter than cavemen, outside of mississipi(lol, I jest). In fact, the idea that neurotypicals function this way is just absurd. There are no neurotypicals dressed like fred flintstone, beating the crap out of barney rubble outside of a cave in Lourdes, France. This is completely obvious and apparent, and no one should have to take it seriously.
But then, why am I so intent on restating the obvious? It's because acknowledgement of such a fact is the domain of the cerebellum. The limbic system(amygdala, to be precise), has no patience for such things. It has no interest in such symbolic representations. It has patience for speech, only insofar as it can detect a threat or praise. Now, most neurotypicals reading this are already in a highly cognizant state of mind, and no one is so inflexible to always be this way. Nevertheless, if I had restated the analogy as a joke inside a night-club, I probably would have raised more ire.
Nevertheless, I have experienced that neurotypicals, on average, have a more active limbic system overall. Of course, I have not done a medical study on this, so I could be flat out wrong. But I think that, such a statement has enough perceived validity to warrant further inspection.
As a closing note, I would like to point out that the limbic system is not inherently inferior to the upper executive functions of the brain. The association with "lower" and "upper" that the limbic system and cerebellum have recieved is an unfortunate byproduct of history, but no such comparison of quality should be percieved. Depending upon the criterion used for "better", anything can be better than anything else. If my criterion for better was "likelihood of avoiding prison in south mississipi", then suddenly would could say that a white man would have the advantage in that particular case.
On the other hand, if our criterion was "ability to avoid skin-cancer", then a black man would win hands down. Naturally, I am using the extreme, racial case to illustrate a point. If something as scandalous as race relations can be subject to this kind of intellectual categorization, then something more mundane, such as the difference between the limbic system and the cerebellum, should fall easily to this kind of thinking.
Then again, this kind of specificity is natural to me. And I am indulging in it because I am on an aspie forum. I probably would present my message differently elsewhere.
What do you think?
I've been reading the literal interpretations thread from the beginning, to about the beginning of the 3rd page. I see that asnlifecoach has ruffled a few feathers, though I don't blame her(statistically, asn is more likely to be a girl, but I digress.
). The different sides of the discussion are coming from two different vantage points: Verbose and logical, and Emotional and empathetic. Perhaps I can explain: I used to think very much like SUM1 and King Oni. In fact, I relate to and prefer their mode of thinking. Nevertheless, I recently underwent a shift in perspective a few years ago, that enabled me to communicate in a neurotypical style.The two different styles don't match up, because they are actually two different formats, within which information is encapsulated very differently. The neurotypical style makes much heavier use of the lower limbic system. On top of the limbic system, they also use the higher level conscious processing functions, though not exclusively. This mixture results in a different communicative format. If you think of it in programming terms, it is like a function that accepts different arguments. If you send the wrong parameters to the function, then much of the information will be used incorrectly, or simply be discarded.
In that sense, we have bugs in our code. ^.^
The aspergic style of communication is much more lopsided. I have found that we have the capability to use both the upper executive functions in the cerebellum, as well as the powerful communicative styles utilized by the lower limbic system. In that sense, we do not fundamentally "lack" anything, in terms of neurological topography. And there probably is no real structural pathology with regards to brain wiring. However, and this is the key point, the aspergic uses his system resources much differently.
If the neurotypical can be said to use the lower limbic system in parallel to the upper executive functions, then the aspie can be said to use one or the other, with the option to choose. I personally have experienced this: I can function in a predominantly logical mode, where emotional considerations and problems of a social nature are cast to the side, or I can function in a predominantly empathetic mode, where logic is less important than the overall group "feelings/vibrations".
I say "predominantly" because there is no complete exclusivity between the two systems. In either mode, there is usually a hint of the other as well. But the overall ratio of logic to emotion is much more unbalanced. Furthermore, even though I can switch between the two communicative modes, to do so is quite expensive in terms of the processing power required. You could think of it as a computational "context-switch", on one of those old LDP-11 microcomputers, which was prohibitively expensive to perform. This is why, even today, good computing practice suggests that one should avoid large amounts of function calls(which are essentially context-switches).
I find that the logical, "aspie" method of thinking is most useful when I am alone or working on math/computer programming. It is excellent for learning new materials and information. Indeed, I often use it when taking university classes to supercharge my academic performance. Usually, I need only study 20-minutes a day with such a mode of thinking, and usually learn the majority of the course material within a month.
The more limbic, "neurotypical" method of thinking, however, is definitely more beneficial in large groups and/or social situations. If you think of the social situation as a group of dogs, then you can use rudimentary animal psychology to gain a foot-hold in the neurotypical style of thinking. To put it another way, a large group of people is much too chaotic for anyone to rely much on logical processing. Instead, the limbic system is given more prominence to allow people to interact.
To elaborate, let's look at the functions of the lower limbic system. These involve things like sensing danger, the fight-or-flight response, male puffery/chauvinism, sexual desire, etc. The main "arguments" that the limbic system accepts as input include: "Sounds, body language, eye contact, environmental stimuli, etc, etc." With humans, there are additional considerations, namely textual/explicitly encoded information via speech. However, the limbic system is not well suited for this kind of information.
As a result, I have found that many neurotypicals strip out a large amount of information from speech. Particularly, when in a large group setting. So what does this mean? It means that when you are speaking to people in a group at some club with lights and music, the limbic system is usually given more prominence. And the limbic system gives much more prominence to information of an animalistic nature.
I can not speak for all aspies(or neuros, for that matter), but I used to assume that the information conveyed by "body language" was pretty much the same as the information that comes through explicitly specified text or speech. I had assumed that I simply could not understand or pick up on this information, but that it, nevertheless, was of the same content and character as the information I dealt with every day.
I've now come to understand that this is not necessarily the case. When communicating with others, or in group situations, the precise nature of what you say is not nearly as important as how you say it. Most of the content is filtered out and discarded by the limbic system in any case, depending on how that person organizes their intellectual priorities. I apologize for using the following analogy in advance, as it has been deemed highly offensive amongst some people that I have shared it with. Nevertheless, I have found it to be of great use when explaining things to some.
Think of a group of dogs, or if you wish, cavemen, sitting outside a cave. Hell, just think of a group of cavemen, sitting with their dogs, outside of a cave. These guys are just bumming around, and probably not thinking about things such as advanced trigonometry. Now then, in this environment, a caveman says something, and all the others grunt in approval. Then they go back to just sitting. A few minutes later, another caveman says something, and they all grunt in approval. Bear meat all around. But then, one guy says something, and another guy doesn't grunt. Ogg said something nasty about Bogg's mother.
And **** goes down.
This analogy may be oversimplified, but I hope it illustrates my point. Neurotypicals are not cavemen. Many neurotypicals are much smarter than cavemen, outside of mississipi(lol, I jest). In fact, the idea that neurotypicals function this way is just absurd. There are no neurotypicals dressed like fred flintstone, beating the crap out of barney rubble outside of a cave in Lourdes, France. This is completely obvious and apparent, and no one should have to take it seriously.
But then, why am I so intent on restating the obvious? It's because acknowledgement of such a fact is the domain of the cerebellum. The limbic system(amygdala, to be precise), has no patience for such things. It has no interest in such symbolic representations. It has patience for speech, only insofar as it can detect a threat or praise. Now, most neurotypicals reading this are already in a highly cognizant state of mind, and no one is so inflexible to always be this way. Nevertheless, if I had restated the analogy as a joke inside a night-club, I probably would have raised more ire.
Nevertheless, I have experienced that neurotypicals, on average, have a more active limbic system overall. Of course, I have not done a medical study on this, so I could be flat out wrong. But I think that, such a statement has enough perceived validity to warrant further inspection.
As a closing note, I would like to point out that the limbic system is not inherently inferior to the upper executive functions of the brain. The association with "lower" and "upper" that the limbic system and cerebellum have recieved is an unfortunate byproduct of history, but no such comparison of quality should be percieved. Depending upon the criterion used for "better", anything can be better than anything else. If my criterion for better was "likelihood of avoiding prison in south mississipi", then suddenly would could say that a white man would have the advantage in that particular case.
On the other hand, if our criterion was "ability to avoid skin-cancer", then a black man would win hands down. Naturally, I am using the extreme, racial case to illustrate a point. If something as scandalous as race relations can be subject to this kind of intellectual categorization, then something more mundane, such as the difference between the limbic system and the cerebellum, should fall easily to this kind of thinking.
Then again, this kind of specificity is natural to me. And I am indulging in it because I am on an aspie forum. I probably would present my message differently elsewhere.
What do you think?
